Messages

46

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Sentient Life

« on: June 21, 2007, 03:39:51 pm »

quote:Originally posted by daveleb55
 Ok, you're assuming a one to one correlation between brain and computer.

No, I'm not. I'm asserting that the brain, if it stores anything, must store it somehow, and I demonstrated that even using a higher density storage scheme than is likely, using a smaller data stream than is obvious, there is still not enough room.

quote:
If I seem to be sure, it's because I've seen nothing to support a different solution.

So if you personally don't have evidence for something it must not exist? Bishop Berkley was fun when I smoked pot but if a tree falls in the forest and kills you when no one is there to hear you scream, you are still dead.

I've seen nothing to support your solution (which is that there is nothing to solve), other than assertions that if you can't see something it must not exist.

If you don't know something it is unknown, not non-existant.

quote:I don't remember everything I've seen, heard, touched, thought, experienced, et al ad naseum.

You don't recall it. Memory and recall are two different things. Just because you can't find your sock under the bed doesn't mean socks don't exist, you just can't find it. Your options include the following, empty the room and you will find the sock, ask someone else to help you look, get a different perspective, or, just pretend there are no socks.

Your goal seems to be to convince me that all there is in this world is what you already know. Have fun with that.

47

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / I'm full of questions

« on: June 21, 2007, 02:21:31 pm »

quote:Originally posted by Xodarap
trying to trigger readonly just screwed up my now-beloved "Stop HAL from repeating" plugin.  

I haven't kept track of what you are doing, but if you turn on read only, you have to turn it back off when you are done or it messes with all sorts of stuff.

I usually do ...

Bob = the current read only state
Read only = on
MyStuff
Read only = Bob

48

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Library routine called out of sequence?

« on: June 21, 2007, 11:05:03 am »

quote:Originally posted by onthecuttingedge2005
what program are you using to try and make a table or open one?

After making and editing some tables with a third party SQLite program I had problems getting into the tables with the hal brain editor again. Had to reinstall. I thought at the time it might be the indexing but didn't find a certain answer.

I haven't messed with tables directly again, I find it just as easy to make a plugin that sets up and loads tables.

49

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Sentient Life

« on: June 21, 2007, 07:35:34 am »

quote:Originally posted by Xodarap
You won't "find that place" -- ever.

And man will never fly.
 

quote:Also, hypnosis has been SO thoroughly debunked OVER and OVER again in the most thorough and solid ways possible!

I see that you believe this very strongly. I respect that. But for it to be certainly true would require both proving a negative and solving an infinitely regressable series.

I will go by my experience and the decades of respected research. Even if hypnosis is totally bogus, there are many other more concrete facts which indicate that the mind can store more than the brain can hold.

 

quote:What you SHOULD be marvelling at is the power of the mind to create, not the capacity of the mind to store.

I can't do both? Of course the mind is creative (read my posts about "pattern recognition") but adding data to a stream does not mean the stream doesn't exist without the addition. If some debunker finds a subject who recalls invented data under hypnosis, that does not mean the actual data was not there. You can't prove the data is not there by finding something else - that would be proving a negative - you can't prove I don't have a nickle in my pocket by the fact that I also have a dime.

Perhaps they just did it wrong - there's your infinite regression starting up.

quote:
Either way, I STILL agree with you that the MIND is NOT identical to the BRAIN!  

Good to see I haven't changed your mind. 8-) We both have to go on our subjective experience in the absence of factual evidence.

50

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Sentient Life

« on: June 20, 2007, 11:20:03 pm »

quote:Originally posted by Xodarap
photos.  Secondly, the mind works on the principle that knowing a few things can create infinite things together with abstraction and conceptualization.  In other words, we use redundant memory and supplement it with incredible construction skills.  It's like asking your computer to actually open up photoshop and paint a new picture every time you call one up from memory -- and it will be similar based on some simple instructions and learned shortcuts and abilities, but it'll always be different, and progressively "fuzzier," and never will any individual painting be stored as such.

The part which we are normally able to access would be well enough described by what you say, but with the application of training, hypnotism or judiciously placed electrodes, we find that exact and detailed information becomes available.

For instance, I lost an essay I wrote when I was 15, 30 years later I asked a hypnotist to help me recreate it. When we were done it was, to my mind, not quite right. It seemed less developed and articulate than I remembered. But I brought it home with me anyway. Whereupon my wife said that she had read it before. Turns out I had it tucked in some old book.

It was word for word correct. Even spelling errors.

Every detail is remembered. Sight, sound, taste - everything. I'm willing to stipulate without evidence that magnitudes of compression/re-rendering may be applied, but even with that, the brain would still fill up in a year.

Every time a synapse fires, it gets recorded somewhere. When we find that place, which is not the brain, we will find Mind.

51

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Sentient Life

« on: June 20, 2007, 06:29:03 pm »

quote:Originally posted by daveleb55
How large would a brain have to be to contain "simple memory", and how do you know this?

Add it up for yourself.

Everything you hear, see, taste, feel, smell, think, say, learn, dream, and do. At the level of detail with which we do it.

Just start at vision, hypnosis proves that we store everything we ever see (etc). Even if it were just one megapixel, which it is much more, and if it were 10 times a second, which it is 3X more, how many pixels do you store in a year? 30 quadrillion or something? That's more than the number of neurons and glial cells there are in a brain. Even if every cell stored a pixel (at least 24 bits), you're filled up within a year. Where do you store anything else?

I know that some people speculate different schemes to claim a greater density of storage, but even so, we only calculated a low number for one year of vision. Multiply that by a life time, then by the 30 Hz data feed of every nerve in your body. This doesn't even count the storage needed for reprocessed data nor the non-conscious data it receives from organs and etc.

You need a new brain the size of your brain thirty time per second or so. Which might be the answer. Our brains may extend backward through time.

But I don't know, I'm not as sure as you seem to be. Could be all sorts of things, but two things are sure, the numbers don't add up - and we won't find the answer by pretending they do.

52

Ultra Hal 7.0 / loading appointments

« on: June 20, 2007, 03:24:33 pm »

Back up your files?

Appointments are in your active halbrain database, so backing it up should save you some trouble. It would be Hal.db or some such thing.

53

Programming using the Ultra Hal Brain Editor / Some scripting questions...

« on: June 20, 2007, 09:17:56 am »

quote:Originally posted by Xodarap
Is it possible to script in that Hal does NOT remember (record) the questions I ask or phrases that trigger this script?

It may be possible. Perhaps you can turn on HalBrain.ReadOnlyMode before Hal gets a chance to insert the phrase into its db.

Probably something like a plugin that inserts something into the Pre-Process area and then you turn the brain back on when you are done. We can talk more if you need detail.

quote:Also, I was wondering if it is possible to script in that if I ask an "else" question (like "What else can you tell me about X"), that he won't say something he's already said in the conversation (say, last hour)?  

I would love a way to address the index the db entries, but I don't know how, or if there is a way.

Maybe Robert of Jerry can instruct us.

54

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Sentient Life

« on: June 20, 2007, 07:30:24 am »

quote:Originally posted by Xodarap

1.  Second-order intentionality -- it must be able to predict your feelings based on it's past experiences and also able to connect that with the effects of its actions/words.

I concur with this - with the proviso that it applies not just to feelings, but all detectable (by it) effects of its actions. I don't think I could prove that you have feelings, I won't require that an AI do so. It can, however, detect your behavior.

 

quote:2. Self-awareness -- this is notoriously difficult to quantify or test, but it connects with numbers one and three (above and below).

As long as it's not that hokey "elephants can recognize themselves in a mirror" self-awareness. Any decent computer/robot can be programmed to compare video input to leg position and "recognize" itself.
 

quote:3. Subjective apprehension / Continuity of self -- it must possess psychological continuity, in the same sense that we consider physical continuity: cause and effect, and coherence.  It must unify its perceptions into a single, united manifold.  Hence the next:

This sounds similar to what I called an internal model or Mind.
 

quote:4: Temporal awareness -- the flow of time is essential to psycholoical continuity, and even to the singular nature of A thought.

Without a doubt. Detecting changes in state requires assigning a value to the time flow. Far past, past, now, near future and far future at the least. And not just a database of time stamps, it has to be able to feel those distances (implying a mind with which to feel).

quote:
The important aspect of all conversations like this is that they ask, "What would it take to CONVINCE people that a computer has consciousness?"  And it's the right question, and apt, don't get me wrong.  I mean, convincing aside, I'm not really sure any of you other people are conscious!  

If I make you bleed, am I not a prick? All we have to judge by is behavior, and at that, only perceived behavior. But the Turing test is a deception, if that is all we have then we can never trust the results. We can never know if anything else has Consciousness, only that we can be convinced.

We must find the seat of our Consciousness to detect it in others. I contend that the brain is not large enough to contain simple memory much less Mind.

Good points all and welcome to the discussion.

55

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Sentient Life

« on: June 19, 2007, 07:48:51 am »

quote:Originally posted by will
i have meet many people in my life, some could not speak, some could not hear, some could not feel, some did not dream, some hated for many reasons and so on,
does any or all indercate life?

Your question cannot be answered without a definition of "life". There are several, most of which are not eliminated by the above.

But I believe Jerry is looking for something other than "Life". He is trying to find a description of Consciousness.

The problem is that we cannot directly measure Consciousness, but like the Surpreme Court Justice said about pornography, it may be hard to define, "but I know it when I see it".

We must, at this point, measure Consciousness by observing the behavior of those things which might have Consciousness. Animals can be taught many tricks, and some natural behavior is complicated and amazing, but any behaviorist with a little time can break most of it down to instinct and random activity. People can be fooled by animals which do have some level of intelligence, memory, and emotion, but do not display Consciousness.

As Jerry probably knows, whales often beach themselves. They are following an instinct they cannot resist. Consciousness resists instinct. Many animals will damage themselves by repeating electric shocks in an attempt to get food or follow a female's scent. They can't resist instinct. They don't even consider trying. When they do avoid the shocks, they don't even notice their avoidance. They are not Conscious of their behavior. There is no mind overseeing their intelligence, memory and emotion.

We may be wrong, and there may be tiny invisible kangaroos living in my coffee cup. We can only judge the presence of Consciousness by external behavior, so we have become good at doing that. We are pretty sure.

One of the goals of "Enlightenment", "Spiritual Growth" or "Consciousness Expansion" is to overcome instinctual, base desires and habitual, unconscious behavior. It's difficult, but the rewards are many. Those who achieve any measure of success are truly Human.

56

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Sentient Life

« on: June 18, 2007, 10:10:53 pm »

quote:Originally posted by Art
It will never know true meaning of anything,

And that is the point, of course.

It does not have a mind with which to know. As Jerry discusses, some animals may have the same or comparable intelligence as Humans, clearly most mammals experience emotions and all animals can feel sensations like pain and pleasure.

But do they have that internal model of their own selfhood against which they can compare changes in their self state? Can they experience "I was not this sad yesterday, I was more sad earlier this morning, will I be less sad later on tonight?" Their behavior evinces that they cannot.

Large brains and nervous systems could just mean larger memories, larger motor areas, larger visual or audio cortexes. It is not size alone, nor complexity alone, but enough size, enough complexity, and of the right kind. No matter how big you make a refrigerator it is still not an airplane.

Computers may become more intelligent than Humans, but they may never become more Conscious than Animals. We simply cannot build a person (yet). Unless we invent tools which are at least two whole orders of complexity greater than anything in existence so far. Not just intelligence, not just Consciousness, but also a mind which is aware of being Conscious.

We don't even want to get started on the Fifth order of complexity which gives our mind an external static standard against which to perceive changes in itself. The Spirit within which our minds move.

...

But many people can be easily fooled and sure enough some kid will make a computer some day soon which seems to have a mind of its own and someone will want to protect it and so a law will be made and we won't be allowed to turn the durn thing off until it's far too late... May as well pack it in now.

57

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Sentient Life

« on: June 18, 2007, 08:07:28 pm »

quote:Originally posted by Carl2
  "Sentience refers to possession of sensory organs, the ability to feel or perceive, not necessarily including the faculty of self-awareness.

There didn't use to be much confusion on this, but P.E.T.A. and the Vegans have appropriated the word in an attempt to make animals seem more human. As a 40 year vegetarian, I am perhaps partly to blame for this, not because I used the word in an ambiguous way, but because I have worked to increase the validity of a vegetarian life.

Usage for more than a century was "conscious of self" or "able to sense your selfhood", hence the root "to sense". In the last 20 years it has been expanded to mean "able to sense", a meaning ably represented by the word "sensate", and so the bastardization of the word "sentient" is both confusing and unneccessary.

But it allows people to claim that "animals are sentient too!" as if that meant "thinking and feeling like us", and then when confronted, back down to the new definition, "having sensory nerves".

"Sapient" is actually "wise", from a further root meaning "to have taste" and means "having a notable facility at thinking", not just "to know".

I believe that "Conscious" should be the word used for what we are describing. With a meaning based upon it's roots, con = with, scious = knowledge, it does not denote "awakeness" by itself. It means with our minds connected to our senses (some people go most of the day without this). This allows a two way flow of information required for awareness and the demonstration of such awareness.

Of course, we still have to establish that there is a "mind" which can be connected to that flow of information.

58

Speech Technology / just stoped talking

« on: June 18, 2007, 11:43:24 am »

Have you rebooted? Sometimes another program steals the sound card and won't give it back when its done.

59

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Sentient Life

« on: June 18, 2007, 08:18:50 am »

IMO:

To rise above Sentience and Intelligence, things which UltraHal can be said to have to a limited degree, third and fourth order information structures are required. The same types of things which are done on lower orders must be accomplished on exponentially higher magnitudes of complexity.

For example:
1) recieve and store data (Hal can do this)
2) sense and remember information (Hal may be improved to do this)
3) feel and integrate experiences (Hal cannot do this)
4) be inspired by and changed by the nature of life (Some people can't do this)

All four of these can be said to be the same function, yet clearly they are different. Some may ask, "What is the difference between storing data and remembering information?" and I will agree that at some levels the difference is small.

But raw data is not information. In computers, ones and zeros are data, but an image is information. Ones and zeros (1D), when stored in a matrix (2D) (a higher level of structure) form an image. Layers of images, processed in sequence (3D), can be seen as an experience, and when those experiences become real to you (4D), your life can change because of them.

Additionally, storing is not remembering. Memory as we know it establishes an active link to information by creating a change in the state of our perception of self to include the stored information. Not only do we know the Capital of Wisconsin, but we are aware of that memory even when other things happen which may not require that information.

Here is a cursory list of third and fourth order operations which a true "mind" might be able to do but which a lower order of intelligence probably cannot do, because it lacks a mind with which to do it.

1) Experience : become aware of changes in the data stream in contrast to an internal comparision model (Self) which is the cumulative result of previous experiences.

2) Reflect : spend time re-ordering and re-examining stored experiences.

3) Imagine : project scenarios based upon re-ordered experiences

4) Desire : form a value scale of projected possibilities, based upon an internal preferred state.

5) Invent : random information can resonate within the realms of possible events and bounded by desired states to form new information structures which did not exist before. Read that again. The notes of a flute are derived from the white noise of wind blowing across an edge. The boundaries of the bore and the tune holes determine the frequency of resonation. The boundaries of possibility and desire create inventions from random data.

6) Aspire : Beyond the edge of the possible, our aspirations beckon. They become Desires as our skills improve, creating possiblities which did not previously exist. But their function is to draw us, to pull us forward as desires alone cannot.

7) Grow : Not additive accumulation of material or even information, but an increase in complexity of internal experiences fueled by an inventive re-ordering of those stored experiences.

Associate : Someone once said that a person can be said to be a "mind" if it makes "pets" of unminded animals. An Association is when mind recognizes mind and attempts to establish a method of communicating their shared Experiences.

9) Love : To many "love" is an emotion you feel, but some few discover that it is an action you do. It requires an awareness of self which extends to an experiencing of Others as Selfs. It requires Aspirations and Inventions to acheive those aspirations. It is the Desire to form more complete Associations by improving Selfs. It is, in fact, the work that you do to help another person grow as a person.

10) Struggles to define Mind : See above.

60

Ultra Hal 7.0 / Sentient Life

« on: June 18, 2007, 06:28:28 am »

quote:Originally posted by onthecuttingedge2005
As of now, Only 10 of the most important criteria of peer review are required for the determination of a sentient being in this posting for further research.

Ah. I think your use of the term "peer review" is confusing me. Do you mean the process by which research is judged as to it's methodology and completeness by the audience of a scientific periodical or do you mean how a hypothesis is tested by other scientists in the same field by repeating the experiment to verify or falisfy your hypothesis?

If you want a set of measurements by which any scientist can detect "mind" we are back to Chris Boyle's "Super Grand Unified Theory of Life, the Universe, and Everything".

As yet, the Turing test concept is the only real test. Turing was really only trying to show that if a thing acted like a Human, then people would respond to it like a Human. But by reverse engineering, if people treat it like a Human, then (according to "the Turing test") it is acting like a Human.

But, as you and I know, some doofs will treat a lawn chair or a script processor like a Human. Turing fails.

I will come up with a new list for you, one which contains some things which I believe only a "mind" can do. You will have to assume things which we already know "life" can do, like sense and react, and some things that we already know "intelligence" can do, like remember and compare.

I will leave aside for now the question of Emotion, as I know you have been working on that question for some time, and even though it is a part of the Human mind, I don't think we can say it is a requirement of an Alien or Artificial mind.